I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. | 

i Chap. ..Q.X^Z I 

' Shelf ..... 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



n , 







/f . f/, A-^-^^^ 



AN ADDRESS 



COMMEMORATIVE OF 



Richard Henry Mather, 



Professor of Greek in Amherst College. 



Delivered Before the Faculty, Students, and 
Friends of the College, 



June i5;th, 1890, 



/ 



/ 

BY PROFESSOR HENRY ALLYN FRINK. 



AMHERST MASS, 1890. 



V, 






f'-h 



i\'^^ 



GKirriTi], AxTELi, & Cadt Compa^'t, Pkinters, 
HoiiTOKE, Mass. 



THE ALUMNi AND FRIENDS OF AMHERST COLLEGE 



ARE PROVIDED WITH THIS ADDRESS BY 



THE HON. WILLIAM WHITING, A. M. 



A LONG-TIME FRIEND OF PROFESSOR MATHER. 




I 



LIFE many-sided, rich in endowment, and of 
large usefulness has gone from us. De- 
voted to Amherst Collepfe with rare con- 
secration, for more than thirty years, no one 
voice can tell of the reach of its influence. So in 
what will be heard to-day, many voices will 
mingle. Would that their words could be repeat- 
ed in full. But since this cannot be, the words 
that are spoken will aim to echo the spirit of 
the many who have gratefully testified of Pro- 
fessor Mather's earnest life and work. 

Our first thought of Professor Mather is that 
his was a singularly favored life. Its end was 
pathetic, almost tragic. But until its closing 
months, a kind fortune, as we ordinarily count 
fortune, waited upon it generously and con- 
stantly. This fortune began with an honored 
lineage. Piety, patriotism, learning, power of 
mind and gift of leadership, as marked as this 
country has known, distinguish his ancestry. 

His name he traced to Richard Mather of 
Lancashire, England, who in 1635 came to 



6 

America, and settled as a preacher at Dor- 
chester, Mass. From his second son Timothy, 
Professor Mather was descended. This Timothy 
was the brother of Increase Mather, sixth presi- 
dent of Harvard College, whose degree of Doctor 
of Divinity was the first granted in this country ; 
and the uncle of Cotton Mather, even more 
illustrious than his father. Increase, as author, pat- 
riot, and divine. Richard, a son of Timothy, settled 
at Lyme, Connecticut; and Henry, his descendant 
of the fourth greneration, was father of Professor 
Mather. On the maternal side a not distant 
ancestor was Jonathan Edwards, the theologian 
and metaphysician, — "One of the three original 
minds that America has produced." Through his 
mother's father, he was also descended from the 
Rev. John Whiting, a colleague of the Rev. Mr. 
Stone an early pastor of the First Church in 
Hartford, Connecticut; and from Captain John 
Mason, the successful commander in the Pequot 
War, major of the colonial forces for many years, 
and from 1660 to 1670 Deputy Governor of Con- 
necticut. 

When a young man the father of Professor 
Mather, following an elder brother, Richard, emi- 
grated, as it would then be said, from L)-me, 
Connecticut, to Binghamton, New York. Here, 
later, Henry Mather married Frances Whiting, a 



7 
great-granddaughter of Jonathan Edwards; and 
here, February 12, 1834, was born Richard Henry 
Mather. 

If New England was not his birth-place, its 
spirit was embodied in the home of his boyhood. 
To know what was the influence of tliat home 
upon the child is to recall what was most enno- 
bling in the man. At fourteen Richard Mather 
came to Amherst to be under the intellectual 
guidance of his uncle, Professor William S. Tyler. 
For this guardian of his youth and companion of 
his early and later manhood, Professor Mather 
had, as his mother writes, "the admiration of a 
pupil combined with the love of a son and the 
sympathy of a life-long friend. 

A little later, he was for a term at the Hopkins 
Academy, Hadley, Mass., then having for its 
Principal the present Lecturer on Natural Philos- 
ophy in Amherst College, Dr. Marshall Henshaw. 
From here, to complete his preparation for col- 
lege, he went to Williston Seminary, East- 
hampton. " He was then," as a classmate. 
President Northrup of the University of Minne- 
sota, tells us, "what he has always been, a genial, 
hearty, and friendly man ; an earnest and excel- 
lent scholar; an eloquent speaker." Especially 
was President Northrup impressed with his class- 
mate's proficiency in Greek, "as he had then the 



8 

habit of leaving his room and coming out into the 
hall of the dormitory, and there rolling off the 
smooth-flowing lines of Homer with almost light- 
ning rapidity. I have since heard him preach in 
English, and very few men could surpass him in 
preaching; but no English preaching could ever 
impress me as did his appropriation, — I may call 
it, rather than mastery, of the Greek tongue." 
To President Northrup's early impressions of this 
student of Greek is to be added Professor Tyler's 
statement, "that in all the classes that he has 
taught, Professor Mather had no equal in facility 
and felicity of translation." Nor can the silence 
of his "silver tongue" to-day make us forget 
the charm and power with which he was wont to 
reproduce the stately march and magnificent 
sweep and swell of Greek verse, in his public and 
private readings from the tragic poets. 

Graduated from Williston Seminary in 1852 
with the honor of Salutatory oration, he entered 
Amherst College with the class of 1856. In this 
class he was prominent as a scholar and writer; 
and Sophomore year, as a Kellogg Prize speaker. 
Junior year he left the class of 1856 for foreign 
travd. With Professor Tyler, Mr. Edward A. 
Strong, now of the Board of Trustees of Amherst 
College, and Mr. George Washburn, for many 
years President of Robert College, Constantino- 



9 
pie, he went over the usual route of the tourist 
in Europe, with a visit to Egypt, Palestine, Tur- 
key, and Greece. A part of the time the Rev. 
Samuel Fiske, then known as "Dunn Browne," 
was a companion. In Mr. Fiske's sketches of 
his travels, entitled "Dunn Browne Abroad," we 
catch now and then a characteristic glimpse of 
Professor Mather as a youthful traveller. The 
glimpse is always of one brightening the way, 
and making hard places seem easy and smooth. 
So it was through the whole journey of life. To all 
whom he met and to all with whom he lived and 
labored, he was as the light that gladdens, and as a 
breeze that invigorates. 

His early visit to Greece was an epoch in his 
life. His impressionable, responsive nature was 
here touched with a power as lasting as, at the 
time, irresistible. However unconscious the pur- 
pose, sympathies were quickened that had for 
their blossom and fruit the giving of all his future 
years to the study of Greek life, art, and litera- 
ture. In this opportunity for an enthusiastic 
devotion to an early inspiration, we see more 
than a favored life. It is something that ap- 
proaches an ideal life. It is the "vision splen- 
did" of the youth, not fading, as is so often the 
sad experience, "into the light of common day ;" 
but in all the years that follow, steadily rounding 



lO 

into larger, finer proportions, and gaining a 
richer beauty and glory. 

On his return to Amherst, he joined the class 
of 1857, and was graduated with its highest honor. 
The subject of his oration was the keynote of 
the theme about which he was to write and speak 
for a lifetime, "Athenian Culture." His previous 
record as a scholar, his brilliant powers, and his 
year of travel with its advantages, made this 
honor probable from the first. To the members 
of the class with the same ambition, and their 
friends, his entering the lists was naturally a dis- 
appointment. How he bore himself in this 
ordeal we learn from a classmate, the Rev. Dr. 
Frisbie of Des Moines, Iowa. "As I recall those 
days, I am impressed by the genuineness of the 
manhood he then showed. He did not allow it 
to be thought that he had taken a place with us 
that he might get the advantage of any one of 
us. He did not keep himself apart. He did not 
act as though his was a position to be defended. 
He was at once a member of the class in frank, 
friendly heartiness. It was his class from the 
day that he entered it. His course was such as 
to allay the first sense of disturbance, and to make 
for himself a sure and warm place in the hearts of 
his classmates." 

The year after graduation found him a teacher 



II 

at Williston Seminary with an experience brightly 
prophesying his future success. He was always 
interested in Williston Seminary, and an election 
to its Board of Trustees in 1880 was very grate- 
ful to him. To the earnest sense of duty that 
attended him in every place of responsibility, he 
added here the warm love of a son. 

Another year abroad, given mainly to the study 
of Philology at Berlin, and he returned to make 
Amherst, where he had passed so much of his 
youth, his home for life.^ And how he loved 
Amherst, Her beauty was his delight and praise. 
With each returning year he would say, "that he 
felt like thanking God that he was permitted to 
see the spring come again in Amherst, — it was 
so beautiful." And if this joy in the beautiful 
was his birthright, was not his a favored 
life in having two such homes as Amherst 
and Binghamton to give his aesthetic sense the 
kindest and most generous culture ? The hills 
that surround his birthplace except where the 
Chenango and Susquehanna come and go, if not 

* Before going abroad Professor Mather married, May 26, I858, 
Lizzie, daughter of Daniel Carmichael of Geneva, N. Y. The children 
of this marriage are Alice, the wife of Professor Williston Walker, 
Ph. D., of Hartford Theological Seminary; Professor William T. 
Mather of Williston Seminr.ry, and Edward Mather of Boston, Mrs. 
Lizzie Mather died October, 1877, March 31, 1881, Professor Mather 
married Ellen A., daughter of Samuel H. Mather, LL, D., of Cleve- 
land, O, Mrs. Mather survives him, also a young daughter, Eleanor, 



12 

SO famous as those upon which we look, are yet 
in their way hardly less beautiful. Sunsets no 
less brilliant than ours enrich its sky; and upon 
its hills at the East often rests the same purple 
light that at times tints the Pelham range. With 
the two rivers meeting in its centre, its beauty, if 
not so cultivated and suor^estino- so much an 
English landscape as the scene before us, is 
more varied and picturesque. But Professor 
Mather in his comparison always gave the crown 
to Amherst. Nor was this whole reeion without 
a large measure of his admiration and love. In 
his rare fund of delightful sayings, he had none 
that he seemed to enjoy repeating more than the 
remark of a kind lady who, having early recol- 
lections of this part of New England, said to him 
when a boy leaving Binghamton for Amherst : 
"Give my love to the Connecticut Valley, all the 
way up." 

Here in Amherst College, he began in 1859 
the work that he laid down only with his life. Of 
his thirty-one years as a teacher of Greek, three 
were as instructor, six as adjunct professor, and 
twenty-two as professor. He was also an en- 
thusiastic and successful teacher of German from 
1864 to 1879, when he opened a new and most 
valuable field of culture at Amherst College 
as "Lecturer upon Sculpture." 



13 

For a few months in 1862 he pursued studies 
at Andover, Mass., especially theology with Pro- 
fessor Park. In the following- year he was 
licensed to preach; and from that time until 
his last sermon in the Eliot church at Newton, a 
year ago next September, he was the larger part 
of the year supplying churches in New England 
and New York. In preaching not only was his 
mind stimulated and broadened, his social nature 
given friendly culture, and his religious spirit 
a larger activity; but his gifts as an orator were 
put to their highest use. Because of the power 
of these gifts, the wish has often been expressed 
that he might have given himself wholly to the 
ministry. The invitations to do so were alluring. 
Some of these calls received respectful consider- 
ation ; but his heart was here in the college, and 
here he remained. In 1879 Bowdoin College 
conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of 
Divinity. But admired as he never failed to be 
in the pulpit, he was always known by the titl6 
which indicated his life work — Professor Mather. 
So mentioned and remembered, the college 
shared in the impression always pleasant and 
often marked that he left with his congrega- 
tion. 

But Professor Mather's gifts were not simply 
those of the scholar and public speaker. Often 



were his friends made to forget the successful 
teacher and preacher in admiration of the man 
of affairs. This sense of practical power assert- 
ed itself soon after graduation. But with a 
momentary inclination toward business life 
ended all swerving from the purpose to be a 
teacher of Greek. With every other gift, he 
placed his executive force and skill at the dis- 
posal of the college. Many and valuable were 
his services, as in the remodelling of the library 
building, the endowment of scholarships, and in 
meeting extra expenses of his department. How 
helpful was his executive power when turned in 
a single direction, need not be told to one 
familiar with the collection in yonder Art Gallery, 
which, hereafter, whatever may be the official 
title, will always and justly be known as TAe 
Mather CollecHoit. 

It was with the plan of this Art Gallery be- 
fore him that in 1873 he again went abroad. 
How vividly as we have known him in other 
undertakings, is he portrayed in the following 
description by a fellow traveller^ of that summer! 
"Every new day and every new city suggested 
the same question, — what can be done now and 
here for the Art Gallery? It was a rare day that 
something was not accomplished ; and only those 

* The Rev. Robert M. Woods, Hatfield, Mass. 



15 
who know what Professor Mather's enthusiasm 
and executive ability were, can understand how 
rapidly and smoothly that Art Gallery which was 
in Professor Mather's mind took on reality." A 
few years ago the collection of Casts in this Gal- 
lery was, apart from the one in Boston, the finest 
in the country. If to-day it is also more than 
equalled by the one in New York and the one at 
Smith College, the reason is found in lack of 
space in Williston Hall for a larger collection. 
And when grateful hearts and hands shall honor 
the memor}^ of Professor Mather's work for the 
College, what more fitting form can the monu- 
ment assume than a building and a fund that shall 
keep Amherst's Art Collection in the rank where 
he first placed it and held it for so m.any 
years ? 

After twenty-eight years of continuous service, 
came his first long vacation in the form of a year's 
absence from college duties. Mrs. Mather ac- 
companying him, he repeated the tour of his 
student days with the exception of Egypt and 
Palestine and the addition of Holland and Sicily. 
But the main purpose of this vacation was one 
of study and investigation in Greece. Resid- 
ing here several months, he gathered the mate- 
rial not only for extending former courses and 
the preparation of a new course in Greek Art; 



i6 

but for making even more richly stimulating 
and fruitful all the work of the department. 

Again at his post in September, 1888, his 
labors were carried on for more than a year 
with an ardor and energy full of splendid promise 
for what he hoped to be a new era in his teach- 
ing. But sadly familiar is all that follows : the 
thwarting of that promise by the hand of dis- 
ease ; the perilous and painful operation ; the 
brave spirit that met it and from it apparently 
rallied ; the relapse ; and the weary months of 
illness in which he fouMit his disease with a 
courage that, as a classmate who had himself 
stood in battle, writes, "was equal to a Gettys- 
burg or a Wilderness." As the struggle contin- 
ued through the long winter, the wish grew 
with the days to live to look upon another of 
Amherst's beautiful springs, and to see Presi- 
dent Seelye again. But the beauty of the spring 
tarried longer in its coming than he in his going; 
and the night that President Seelye came, he 
went. 

In several of the letters received since he 
went from us we read : "I cannot think of Pro- 
fessor Mather as dead, nor of Amherst College 
without him." Nor need we so think. That 
in Professor Mather which we most loved is not 
dead, nor can it die. Neither can he be sep- 



17 
arated from the college. He made his life one 
with her life ; and in the constant power and 
influence of this Christian College he has an 
earthly immortality. 




II 



S a teacher of Greek, Professor Mather be- 
lieved with Matthew Arnold that " the ao- 
rist was made for man, not man for the 
aorist." No mere word scholar, he observed the 
distinction between the literature of knowledge 
and the literature of power, pointed out by De 
Quincey who says : ''All the steps of knowledge, 
from first to last, carry you further on the same 
plane, but could never raise you one foot above 
your ancient level of earth; whereas, the v^ry first 
step in power is a flight — is an ascending move- 
ment into another element." And so to come 
into Professor Mather's class was an intellectual 
awakening. Imbued with the spirit of the 
authors taught, he entered into the life of the 
tragedy, the poem, the oration, and revealed 
the heart and soul of Greek literature. Not 
that he failed to impart knowledge, and knowl- 
edge of the most scholarly type ; but the spe- 
cial aim of his teaching was, as De Quincey 
would say, power. Work, hard work and much 



19 
of it, was required of the student. But never 
was the work put upon that low level of instruc- 
tion which seeks to give value to learning by 
making it unnecessarily difficult and distasteful. 
He so invested the subject with the charm of 
his literary and aesthetic spirit as to make 'the 
hard work to all appreciative minds, a delight. 
Inspiring the student with his own enthusiasm,, 
the task became as the joyful load which the 
hunter brings back from the successful chase. 
Upon the class of the term he concentrated 
his thought and effort. If for the time he 
seemed to make it his college world, it was for 
the advantage of the class ; and all in turn 
shared the same devotion. He measured with 
a skill and accuracy almost intuitive the capac- 
ity and aim of every member of the class. He 
was swift to detect indifference and indolence. 
His favorite theme, as a preacher, was forma- 
tion of character. No less was this his text as 
a teacher. To be idle or careless meant more 
than a temporary failure in Greek. It was leav- 
ing as he thought, a weak place at the founda- 
tions of manhood. No student of his would 
he permit to do this without his word of 
remonstrance. True, that word perhaps at times 
was sharper and stronger than the student may 
have thought his negligence deserved. Yet it 



20 

needed only the first indication of better things, to 
gain even more largely his instructor's approval 
and encouragement. 

The teacher's one immediate reward is the stu- 
dent's good work. No man ever rejoiced more 
than Professor Mather in this reward. A frequent 
remark when speaking of some of his best classes 
was : "I would willingly teach a class like that, 
year in and year out, for no other compensation 
than the pleasure of it," Tired with other work 
he would say : "I am going to hear such a 
class and get rested." And if the recitation 
proved as he anticipated, he would return 
from it bright and fresh as from a ride in the 
country. 

At the last meeting of the New England As- 
sociation of Colleges and Preparatory Schools, he 
was asked to take part in a discussion of the 
question: Should Homer be taught in the Pre- 
paratory School?" Words dictated in his illness 
in answer to this request, give us his ripest views 
as a teacher of the Greek lanofuao-e and literature. 
"Though there have been important changes in 
recent years, yet Greek is still studied in the pre- 
paratory schools more for its orthographical forms 
than for its literature. After the forms have been 
so far mastered as to permit, let facility and ele- 
gance of translation be insisted on rather than 



21 



microscopic dissection of the words. This ma)- 
seem heresy to some ; but it is the result of long 
experience and much reflection. What is called 
the Dr. Taylor method of teaching I do not be- 
lieve in. I was trained in it most thoroughly, and 
for years, as a teacher, tried to follow it with faith ; 
but it was in vain. I am sure it was not the best 
way. It seems to me vastly more important that 
the academy boy should have untolded to him the 
grandeur, the pictorial beauty, and the exquisite 
word-painting of Homer than that he should 
know all about the dialect and have every enclitic 
at his tongue's end. It is desirable to know both, 
but the first is the more so. * * And my im- 
pression is that in all but the most advanced work 
in Greek, we should study it for its literature 
rather than as a branch of philology. A very 
small proportion of the graduates from our High 
Schools, our Academies, and our Colleges ever 
become professional scholars; most of them have 
to devote their lives to getting a living, and if we 
use up the limited time allotted to this matchless 
literature in examining it page by page and line 
by line with a microscope, we not only cause a 
distaste for the work, but give the students so 
little of that which is admirable that they emerge 
with such a modicum of culture and knowledge 
that they do not appreciate the loss of the one, 
and are glad to forget the other." 



22 

In this article he tells of his own method of 
teaching the Odyssey ; of the time ordinarily 
given to forms and grammar used in putting the 
Greek into the best English, and in " trying to as- 
certain why the poems of Homer are so much ad- 
mired ; " of the marking out of collateral reading 
from Matthew Arnold, Symonds, and other En- 
glish writers on Greek literature ; of the study of 
the geography descriptive and physical, " of cer- 
tain matters in archaeology, especially everything 
connected with art as evinced in Homer ;" of his 
own reading to the class of "striking scenes" 
outside of their lessons ; of a formal debate on 
the Homeric question, and the arousing of in- 
terest in " defending the authorship of the 
poems." 

In a public tribute, a recent graduate has told 
how the time of one recitation was given to 
the reading of slang translations, as prepared by 
members of the class in Aristophanes ; and he 
adds, "I venture to say we caught more of the spirit 
of Attic comedy, in that one hour, than we could 
have in weeks construing into the unnatural 
English sometimes insisted on." St. Augustine 
said of teaching, " a golden key which does not 
fit is useless, a wooden key which does is every- 
thing." So Professor Mather evidently thought. 

Broad himself in his many sympathies, he had 



an especial dread of narrowness. He felt that 
the tendency of the age was too well typified in 
one who, as Frederic Robertson tells us, could see 
nothing of interest in a great Cathedral town, 
except the doors of the houses, because the father, 
who had been a builder, had taught the child to 
observe only such work. To Professor Mather's 
desire to provide an influence that should help 
counteract the selfish intensity and narrow ab- 
sorption of business and professional life, we 
ow^e largely his lectures on art. In their prepa- 
ration he recognized that, as a rule, lecturing and 
teaching are not the same processes. The lect- 
urer has to do with the class ; the teacher, with the 
individual. The lecturer contributes information; 
the teacher stimulates and trains the mind. So 
that whatever may be the place of the lecturer in 
the university, the great work of the college is 
to be done by the teacher. Therefore, his lect- 
ures on art, as on German history and literature, 
are more of the popular type by which we are 
taught than of the scholastic form from which 
we may simply learn something. In what he had 
to say there was much of value purely as instruc- 
tion. But all this would have been in vain, if 
pure and ennobling sympathies had not been 
awakened to guard the soul against evil passions 
and sordid influences. To make young men in- 



24 

telligent about art, its principles and achieve- 
ments, was but a means to an end. And that end 
was to quicken a sense of the beautiful, to call 
into life and joyful vigor emotions, tastes, aspi- 
rations, that would help to refine, purify, sweeten, 
and broaden all the years to come. 

Well has it been said that " contact with an in- 
spiring and magnetic teacher is one of the chief 
goods which Heaven bestows upon us in the 
spring-time of life." How great then is the debt 
of Amherst College to a teacher so enthusiastic 
and Invigorating as was Professor Mather for 
more than thirty years ! 

Nor is the debt now unrecognized. Alumni of 
all periods, not a few from places of high in- 
fluence, send such acknowledgments as are found 
in the eloquent words of Professor Adams of 
Johns Hopkins University: — " Professor Mather 
will always be remembered by his students 
as an enthusiastic apostle of Greek thought. 
He taught not the mere technique of language or 
of art, but rather the appreciation of noble ideals 
of freedom, beauty, truth, justice, honor, and 
manhood, — ideals at once Greek and Christian. 
For him the first sunlight from the East which 
touched the uplifted spear of Athenae Promachos 
was the sunshine of righteousness. Graduates 
of Amherst College who once read with him the 



2 5- 
story of those old wars Math Persia, and who 
heard his splendid English version of the Greek 
dramatists of that second heroic age, will never 
iorget the glorified vision of Greek liberty dawn- 
ing upon Athens, and, from Athens and Flor- 
ence, upon the Western world. The classical 
student whose range hitherto had been limited to 
parsing and scanning, was taught to discover a 
wider intellectual horizon and to perceive the true 
relation of Greek liberty to modern life. Professor 
Mather saw, as clearly as did the great poets and 
teachers before him, that the struggle for freedom 
and truth and justice in the world is by no means 
ended ; that the children of light must continue 
their conflict with material forces and against 
numerical odds as did the Greeks of old. But he 
rejoiced in things won and done. Like the runner 
who brought good news to Athens of victory at 
Marathon, Professor Mather was a herald of pre- 
liminary battle already fought by classical scholars 
in America. He shared the fight; he brought the 
tidings; and like Pheidippides, that hero whose 
image in relief now stands in the Art Gallery at 
Amherst, this messenger of Greek liberty and 
Greek culture gave up his life before his story 
was fairly told. Upon the acropolis of Amherst 
College the Art Idea of Professor Mather will 
survive and be his living monument. 



26 

•' So is Pheidippides happy forever, — the noble strong man 
Who could race like a God, bear the face of a God, whom 

a God loved so well. 
He saw the land saved he had helped to save, and was 

suffered to tell 
Such tidings, yet never decline, but gloriously as he began 
So to end gloriously — once to shout, thereafter be mute : 
' Athens is saved ! ' Pheidippides dies in the shout for his 
me?d." 



Ill 



y I NDIVIDED as was Professor Mather in his 
li loyalty to teaching, yet the world at large 
mourns him to-day as a preacher. Nor as 
we have seen without cause. Says one whose 
opinion is authoritative : " It is hard to think of a 
vacant pulpit in his own denomination so prom- 
inent that he would not have been thought 
worthy of it could, he have been obtained." 
Not analytic or speculative, with no attempt 
to be profound or exhaustive, avoiding all sub- 
tilties and abstractions, he presented simple, 
accepted truths with perfect clearness and 
winning force. Never dull for a moment, but in 
treatment of theme fresh, vigorous, and pictur- 
esque, he caught the attention with the opening 
sentence and held it to the last. If his style was 
finely wrought, the appearance of art was lost in 
its ease and grace. Nor was the sermon without 
some practical end in view. A message for the 
day and hour, it was sent home to the heart and 
life with a directness and an earnestness always 



28 

forcible, and often highly eloquent. Without the 
depth of suggestion, the height of inspiration, and 
range of comprehensiveness, which some demand, 
his preaching had perhaps, because of these deti- 
ciencies, a wider usefulness and more popular 
power. 

He had the physical basis and the temperament 
of the orator. Writes one^' who knew him well, 
"Tides of feeling rolled over him naturally when 
he came to write or speak." To this emotional 
force were added a voice clear, flexible, expres- 
sive, an action peculiarly animated and graceful, 
and a delivery spirited and magnetic. Yet the 
secret of his power as a preacher lies deeper than 
in these things. " Behind the orator," says Emer- 
son, "is the man;" and so behind the preacher is 
the Christian. Of godly ancestry and training, at 
eight years of age a Christian by conscious pur- 
pose, four years later making public profession 
of that purpose, his religious life was from first 
to last wholly natural. When he came to the 
critical moment of his illness, and was to face 
an operation the issue of which the most dis- 
tinguished surgical skill could not foresee, he 
asked first to engage in prayer. And what a 
prayer it was ! Not of nervous apprehension, 
not a plea for life ; but the simple, natural 
expression of a man accustomed to talk with God 

*The Rev. James G. Vose, D. D., Providence, R. I. 



^9 
ifi kll that concerned his ways. With vbitt callft 
and clear and manner perfectly composed, he gave 
thanks for the skill that could relieve pain ; asked 
a blessing upon those who were to exercise that 
skill ; and closed with only a minor petition for 
himself. When men come to such places, and 
unconsciously reveal a faith so childlike, we know 
that there has been nothing assumed or form_al in 
their walk with God. 

In the last sermon which he preached, speaking 
of Christian character he says : "If we have it all 
ready for the emergencies of life, it will be because 
we have accumulated it before." Little did he 
think how noble an illustration of this truth he 
was so soon to give. The first sermon that I 
heard Professor Mather preach was when I was 
preparing for College. In the sermon he told of 
the peace that is found in Christ, especially in the 
struggles of life. The sermon has never been 
forgotten; surely not as I stood by his open 
grave. Yet the thought on that April afternoon, 
was not so much of the unbroken peace now to 
be forever his; as of the gentleness and serenity 
of spirit with which in the months of his bitter 
conflict, he had emphasized every word of the 
sermon, preached with such earnestness, years 
before. 
- "Ah, how shall I speak of Professor Mather as a 



30 
Christian?" says the friend* who from college days, 
next to his own family, had known him in the 
closest intimacy. " The sweetest and best note 
of all was struck here. In no way, in my judg- 
ment was his influence more continuous and 
healthful. He was an apostle of a cheerful Chris- 
tianity. His very presence dissipated all the 
vapors of a morbid self-consciousness. It was 
like a west wind from the Delectable mountains 
— a tonic for all souls depressed by the shadows 
of an introspective habit. He believed God, 
took him at his word, accepted his promises im- 
plicitly, — rested upon them. None had a clearer 
conception of the Fatherhood of God, made 
known through the Brotherhood of the Son of 
Man. I doubt if his spiritual horizon was often 
clouded. It was because of this clear view of an 
established and unchangeable relation, that he 
could with such calm and sweet and wonder- 
ful resignation, lay down all hopes, all plans, his 
consciousness of well-equipped powers of useful- 
ness at their highest point — all without a murmur 
or scarce a sigh at that Father's call ; call to so 
many of us less clear-sighted, less trustful, how 
mysterious, how untimely ! 

His own words, spoken late in his illness to his 
pastor, when asked to send some message to the 

*Mr. Edward A. Strong, Trustee of Amherst College. 



31 
meeting on the Day of Prayer for Colleges are 
known to many of you ; but we shall all be the 
better for hearing them again. "If I were to say 
anything to the students, it would be this — in- 
deed I would like to say this — that the Christian 
life for me has been an endeavor to follow after 
righteousness, not in my own strength but in that 
of my Heavenly Father. I am very conscious of 
weakness, failure, and sin, but I accept forgive- 
ness through Christ who is also my example and 
inspiration." 




IV 



MORE direct study of Professor Mather's 
characteristics turns our thought first 
to the strength of his physical resources. 
Behind that cheery presence and sunny, inspiring 
nature was, for almost a lifetime, unbroken good 
health. The work that would have soon crushed 
an ordinary constitution, his splendid vitality and 
great natural powers of endurance permitted him to 
do with enjoyment. Six days of the week often 
doing double service in helping some colleague, 
teaching art as well as Greek, lecturing in neigh- 
boring villages, editing books, preparing sermons 
and lectures ; the seventh day found him, most of 
the time, at some wearisome distance preaching 
with a freshness and a vigor only to be expected 
after a long vacation. 

But in aiding him bear so easily his constant 
and heavy burdens, how well did his mental gifts 
second his physical powers! Quick, clear, and 
versatile in mind, not only did he adjust himself 
readily to different kinds of work, but he made 



33 
the change serve as rest and recreation. No time 
was lost in mistaking the accidental for the es- 
sential. What should be done, and what left un- 
done, he seemed to know by instinct. No less 
dexterous was he in finding the surest, shortest 
way to do the thing desirable to be done. Not 
given to broad generalizations, his mind 
moved in straight lines toward a definite end. He 
indulged in no super-refinements of thought. 
The vague and abstract he disliked; and aided by 
his unusual power of comparison he sought to 
give all his conceptions substance, form, color. 

With the philosophic side of the Greek mind 
he was not in sympathy, yet few men not of the 
Greek race have been more so in the aesthetic 
element. The Greek's love of the beautiful, his 
fine adaptation of means to ends, his nice sense 
of proportion and power of limitation for the 
sake of proportion, were all Professor Mather's. 
He had also much of the sprightliness, fertility, 
and acuteness of the Greek mind. Nor was he 
wholly without resemblance to the social side of 
the Greek. In his fresh and youthful spirit, his 
delicate sensitiveness, his ease and delight in con- 
versation, his love of raillery and sportiveness of 
speech; and in that peculiarity of the Greek, as 
one of the ancients tells us, " to conceal noth- 
ing," he was kindred to the people whose words 
and works were the study of his life. 



34 

And yet, If he were in these characteristics a 
Greek, must we not say of him, as has been said 
of one of our most noted men of letters — that he 
was a Greek- Yankee ? And what answer is 
there to the charge that Greek culture necessari- 
ly weakens practical force better than the memory 
of his life, one in spirit as it was with the art and 
literature of ancient Greece, and yet with an en- 
terprise, a sagacity, an energy, an executive skill, 
that in the business world of to-day would have 
made him one of its kings ? 

But this practical efficiency was not merely an 
intellectual product. Moral traits and habits gave 
largely to its power. Not only did he know how 
to do things, but he did them as a man who saw 
in them a duty. Thus, he was prompt, industrious, 
faithful. Punctual to every appointment, he was 
also impatient at any delay in beginning a good 
work. "Why wait, why not now?" was his fre- 
quent question when any reform or improvement 
was suggested. 

Of his industry no eulogy could be so eloquent 
as the simple statement of the work which 
he did. But a single example in one line of 
labor must suffice. His lectures on Sculpture 
comprise three closely written volumes, or 469 
pages of large letter-paper size ; those on Greek 
life, three volumes, or 351 pages ; and those more 



35 
recently prepared in extending the course, two 
volumes, or 305 pages. To accompany these lect- 
ures he had carefully planned or collected illus- 
trations, in the way of drawings and photo- 
graphs, to a number that goes high into 
the hundreds. No mention is made of the 
time and effort given to the getting of funds 
and the gathering of the general Art Collection, 
nor of additional hours of instruction, and the large 
and constantly increasing correspondence from all 
parts of the country incited by the reputation of 
the department, other than to say that in itself it 
was one man's full measure of work. 

As faithful as he was industrious, new occupa- 
tions displaced no old and regular duty. Atten- 
tion to Greek art, therefore, did not with him 
mean neglect of Greek literature. In the same 
period that the Art Gallery is growing under his 
hands, he is editing his selections of Herodotus, and 
Thucydides, and preparing his edition of Sopho- 
cles' Electra, and ^schylus' "Prometheus Bound," 
— scholarly works now in wide and successful 
use. And so his full devotion to teaching 
never suffered by his success in preaching. From 
the student in Greek he expected a preparation 
of two hours for each exercise. The same time 
for preparation in some form he always exacted 
of himself. Do we not here discover one source 



36 

of that interest and stimulus, of which evei'y 
alumnus writes who recalls his recitations ? 

This same spirit of faithfulness appeared in 
him as the college officer. A man peculiarly sen- 
sitive to any manifestation of dislike, to whom the 
good will of others was very dear, and who more 
than most teachers valued a student's affection ; 
he was always willing to be responsible for an un- 
popular course of action when convinced that the 
best interests of the college so demanded. 

He was faithful as a citizen. Not only was he 
deeply interested in whatever was for Amherst's 
prosperity and attractiveness, but how promptly 
and liberally he responded to calls for help out- 
side of his own community. How he rode over 
these hills to give the best that he had in lecture 
or sermon, irrespective of the measure of compen- 
sation, often for none at all. 

It was this same faithfulness that in the winter 
months of his illness, made him wish to hear at 
his house his class in Greek. Not to be able to 
meet this class was to him a sad disappointment. 
All larger plans for the future had been laid upon 
the altar. Now one hope remained, — the hope to 
teach to the end, or as he said, "to die 
in the harness." And, may we not add 
that his wish was granted. Not as his faith- 
ful spirit had planned, but as God willed. 



37 
For as the students waited, day by day, for a 
message from his sick room only to hear with each 
report, how the beloved teacher was translating 
his unspeakable trial and struggle into the might 
of the loyal, trustful spirit, a lesson was taught 
that the dullest nature among us could not fail to 
reverence. And as God shall call any of us, in 
days to come, to serve as we "stand and wait" in 
some great sorrow of soul or pain of body, what 
a rallying to manly obedience, to heroic endur- 
ance, will there be in the remembrance of his 
example. 

A personal quality that especially distinguished 
Professor Mather was his naturalness. How this 
was a characteristic of his religious life, we have 
seen. It was the same in all relations. Open as 
the day in speech and action, he expressed the 
feelings of the moment. The thought as it came 
to him, you had without reserve. Man of the 
world as he was in many ways, he was at heart a 
child. Sagacious, practical he was also impul- 
sive, demonstrative. This made his nature appar- 
ently complex, and not always understood. One 
with this characteristic may now and then seem 
inconsistent. To some it will also be thought to 
indicate lack of power ; for the stream is so clear 
that the unpractised eye does not recognize its 
depth. Nor did this element in Professor Mather 



permit him always to understand others, even 
some of his truest friends. A reticence of speech 
upon certain subjects, a silence about the deeper 
emotions which some sacredly observe, he could 
not always rightly interpret. Neither had he at 
all times the poise that marks natures less spon- 
taneous. But how immeasurable would have been 
the loss had he sacrificed this quality; for to this 
he owed largely his brightness, freshness, ardor, 
enthusiasm. This made him socially so enjoy- 
able. This enlivened his home with the spirit of 
banter and playfulness ; and made his intercourse 
with his children so beautiful, resembling that of a 
brother more than that of a parent. This gave him 
the hearty appreciation and its frank expression, 
that caused all companions to remember 
him as a delightful traveller. So uncon- 
scious was he in his enthusiasm in recogniz- 
ing places of classic interest, when approaching 
Greece on his last visit, that before he knew it he 
had drawn to him almost every English-speaking 
tourist on the boat. This it was that gave him 
easy contact with so many sides of life, and has 
left for him wherever he has been, even only for 
a day, some friend or admirer; for it was the one 
touch "that makes the whole world kin." But in 
his deeper life, as we have seen, it was far more 
than this It was that "one touch of nature" 



39 

sanctified by the spirit of Him who said of the 
Httle child, "of such is the Kingdom of God." 

The personal quality, however, that should 
most claim our attention was his unselfishness. 
Speaking of a man's unselfishness one may be 
easily misunderstood. Selfishness is so obtrusive 
as rarely to escape full recognition. Unselfishness 
is more like a river flowing underneath the sur- 
face, but here and there coming to the light for 
the cheer and invigoration of all around it. 
Broadly speaking, the two elements are found in 
every man. To say, therefore, whether a life is 
selfish or unselfish, is to say which element pre- 
dominates. The review thus far made of Profes- 
sor Mather's life, leaves no question on which side 
it is to be placed. But the full measure of his 
unselfishness, we may not so readily see. The 
relations in which it was revealed in all its sweet- 
ness and tenderness are too sacred for our theme. 
The home life where the first thought was always 
for every one else and never for himself, could 
tell us ; but here we must not enter. Friendships 
rivaling brotherly affection, with natures so rare 
and fine that, like the spear of Ithuriel, they would 
at first touch have laid bare the meaner, baser life 
whose central thought is self, could tell us how 
unselfish was his spirit; but such voices are not 
for our ears to-day. The young men who have 



40 

made their way into life through his helpful 
influence, who have felt the clasp of his generous 
hand in time of pressing want, to whom if he 
gave a garment it was one as good as he would 
buy for himself, could tell us ; but they would 
guard his memory as delicately as he met their 
need. 

But it has been said that two periods of life 
uncover the inner nature, however cleverly the 
real life has been concealed before ; one, extreme 
old age ; the other, severe illness of long du- 
ration. And what a revelation of Professor Math- 
er's spirit comes to us from such an illness, as it 
tells of him, sending out from that chamber his 
thought and interest wherever there was the least 
possible claim upon his sympathy; as eager to know 
the result of the last town-meetino- as when in 
health, and with years of life apparently before him; 
keeping himself informed of everything that con- 
cerned the college ; urging those dear to him not 
to exclude themselves from what was bright and 
pleasant outside the sick room ; grateful for every 
attention from friends, and never forgetting in the 
most excruciating pain, the " thank you " for the 
slightest service of the attendant; and when 
conscious of the beginning of the end, putting 
aside all plans of life, and contenting himself with 
the remembrance, as he said, "of the things that 
he had tried to do that make for righteousness." 



41 
And yet this was only another revelation of the 
same unselfish spirit that had shown itself in all 
the years of his devotion to the college. Of this 
spirit can be mentioned no more signal proof 
than his generous estimate of his associates. No 
man serving the college as a means of personal 
ambition, and particularly a man of the open, im- 
pulsive nature of Professor Mather, could train 
himself to speak of the good work and personal 
qualities of his colleagues so warmly and so freely 
as did he whenever occasion permitted. How hearty 
was his admiration of the noble wisdom and rare 
power that guide this institution ; how appreci- 
ative was he of the ripe and earnest scholarship 
that presides over the department of a sister lan- 
guage; hovvf ready his recognition of the calm 
strength of another colleague, the warm heart and 
rich usefulness of another; and so on, leaving no 
quality, no effort, no sign of promise, that looked 
toward Amherst's advancement in any direction, 
without his enthusiastic commendation. Never 
jealous or envious, he rejoiced in every forward 
step taken by any other department. Indeed, 
the quickest way to his esteem was to do some- 
thing helpful to the college. "The victory of 
Miltiades," perhaps "would not suffer him to sleep." 
But if the stimulus of another's activity bent 
him with a new^ energy to his work, it was not to 



42 

surpass an associate but to make his department 
worthier of the college. 

Upon the quantity or quality of his work outside 
of his department, we need not dwell. What we 
would emphasize was the disinterestedness of his 
services, "Of Professor Mather's whole-souled 
devotion to the college," writes one, who not only 
knew his heart as an open book but had wide, 
practical knowledge of what he did, "it was his 
passion. Remember, most of his life was spent 
in Amherst, even a large part of his boyhood, 
either there or in its immediate vicinity. He 
grew up, familiar v/ith the traditions of self-sacri- 
ficing lives given to the institution. He saw such 
lives lived every day. He drank in the spirit in 
the very air. The last time I was with Professor 
Mather for free and unrestrained converse, in 
September, 1889, he told me, that, next to his 
own family and kindred, his thought and love 
were for Amherst College. He was, even then, 
on an errand of business for the college, in the 
interests of a department not his own, and his 
alert mind was full of plans for advancing the 
scheme in hand. The Greek and the Art Depart- 
ment and his power to serve in outside ways, 
constituted his life's joy, and were enough for 
him." In words as unquestionable, the President 
and Treasurer of the college whom he consulted 



43 
in his various efforts, testify of the pure, disinter- 
ested spirit which always marked his labors. Said 
a prominent member of the Board of Trustees of 
another college, looking for a President, a few 
years ago: "In my opinion Professor Mather is 
the man who, in every way, is best qualified for 
the position. I know of but one objection. He 
so loves Amherst College that would he even 
consent to come to us, I am afraid his heart would 
not keep him company." 

And yet can we speak more in his spirit 
than when we ask, what in turn was his debt to the 
college? If no greater blessing can come to a 
man than time and place to do noble things, then 
was Amherst College a blessing to Professor 
Mather. It took him out of himself, and made 
all that he could do, and all that he could become, 
a gain for larger interests than individual success. 
It was an open door to unselfish service. Again, 
it unified his life. Here all his activities found a 
common centre. It spurred him to the highest 
attainments, the richest culture, the noblest man- 
hood; and then gave him the opportunity for conse- 
crated use of all that he had struggled for and 
won. It took his many brilliant gifts that with a 
selfish aim would have gone out in darkness, like 
a whirl of sparks, and centred them all in that 
bright, unquenchable flame whose mission is, as 
its legend tells us, " to enlighten the lands." 



44 

We have now to speak of a characteristic 
that all may not recognize. Professor Mather 
was so energetic in spirit, so earnest and cour- 
ageous'in the advocacy of what he conceived to be 
right, that he was perhaps thought to have large 
confidence in himself. But not often did he look 
upon the results of his work with favor. Search- 
ing as was his eye for the defects of a student's 
performance, he was more exacting in judging 
the faults of his own. His aim was so high that 
he could not easily believe that he had reached 
the mark. Thus, he found the pleasant assurance 
of others grateful and helpful. In the pulpit so 
spontaneous and general was the response, that 
he felt here a confidence not habitual in the class- 
room. Nor is this g-round for criticism. Had 
mere technical accuracy, or even large scholarship 
of visible measurement, been his object, it would 
not have been so difficult to assure him of the re- 
sult. But when a teacher has for his aim what Pro- 
fessor Mather said had been his, " manhood, gen- 
uineness, breadth and variety of character, sweet 
and tender sympathies," he cannot well have the 
certainty of results that are measured by the per- 
centage of examination papers. 

A friend writes of him as "sanguinely earnest." 
Yes, he was sanguinely earnest, but it was in the 
motive of his work that his earnestness and hope 



45 
had their spring and force. Once, when evident- 
ly speaking from the depths of his heart, while 
forced to consider a call to another field of work, 
he said : " Could I believe it possible for me to 
do for these boys what I wish to do, my thoughts 
would not be turned from Amherst, for a moment; 
but I do not seem able to do it." Yet the next 
day, and every day as long as he taught, he was 
striving toward his goal as earnestly as though he 
had never questioned reaching it. Among the 
human compensations of his long illness were 
the touching assurances, that, in face of his 
doubts, he had done largely what he supremely 
wished to do. Here a letter from one now a power 
in the world, telling of what an inspiration this 
teacher had been to him; here another, recalling 
little kindnesses of more than a score of years 
ago ; here another, recognizing the moulding in- 
fluence of the Greek class-room that had been 
felt all through life. What a ray of cheer, letters 
and words like these must have sent into the dark 
valley through which he was passing. It was as * 
a promise of the full reward of the eternal day so 
soon to break upon his vision. 



V 



"y ND now, as we near the close of his Hfe, 
l~~ the impression that it was a favored life 
qJ deepens ! Favored it certainly was 

in its natural gifts of health and vigor; in 
a happy, enthusiastic temperament; in a mind 
brilliant and versatile; in fine and apprecia- 
tive tastes, wide sympathies, and charm of 
social power; and best of all in an inherited 
moral force and religious spirit. Favored 
it also was in parentage, in the home of his child- 
hood, in the wise hand and strong mind that 
shaped his youthful education ; in the later train- 
ing of Williston and Amherst, with opportunities 
for travel and foreign study ; in finding his life- 
work in the glow and strength of early manhood ; 
in the stimulus which that life-work gave to every 
aptitude, to the beneficent use of his varied 
powers, and to the full enlistment of his heart in 
its service ; in his extended circle of admiring 
acquaintance, and choicer group of devoted 
friends; in his beautiful home and those who 



47 
made it more than all the rest of the world to 
him; In his increasing usefulness and growing 
honors with every year. And, twelve months 
ago, as with ripened powers enriched through 
recent travel, study, and leisure, he was again 
laboring with us, what new and larger chapters 
telling of far more valuable work and wider range 
of activities, promised still to be added. 

Yet because the sequel is not as we had planned 
for him, shall we say that the life was no longer 
favored ? It is not for us to Interpret the myster- 
ies of God. Why these disappointments, why this 
summons to face for months with open eye the 
inevitable end, why now the call hence when 
never before so largely ready for consecrated ser- 
vice, is not for us to say. But neither is it for us 
to forget that the seeming blow which staggered 
us even as we only saw it fall upon him, was one 
to which he bowed as to a blessing. During his 
illness, he was often heard saying slowly and 
solemnly, "Lord, make me to know mine end, 
and the measure of my days, what it is, that I 
may know how frail I am ;" at times, adding the 
opening verses of the first Psalm. And as we 
think of the description of the godly man : "And 
he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of 
water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season ; 
his leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he 



48 

doeth shall prosper," may we not imagine that could 
our friend speak to us, it would be to say, "pause 
not at twelve months ago, but write, mine was 
throuo-h the o-race of God a favored life to the 

o o 

very end?" Surely we must so write, unless we 
thrust our own doubt and disappointment into 
the place of his resignation and faith. For with 
a spirit born of God, this patient sufferer took 
what were to us only blighted hopes, painful 
struggle, and weariness unutterable, and trans- 
formed them into jewels for his crown of glory. 
And so speaking in this same spirit In which for 
months he lived, he would now tell us, that the 
life that in its ending- seemed to us like a broken 
pillar, an unroofed house, a ship going down in 
mid-sea, had in it no disaster, nothing of incom- 
pleteness, but an order, a meaning, a beauty, 
that were divinely perfect. 



